Local news

WEEK COMMENCING 26 SEPTEMBER 2009

Govt draws closer to major health reform

28 September 2009: The federal government says it expects to outline a major reform of the nation's health system within four months. Health Minister Nicola Roxon told a public health conference on Monday Australia was on the cusp of a massive sector overhaul, including a big focus on preventative health.

Labor hits back at eye doctors' campaign

29 September 2009: The Rudd Government, under fire over cuts in Medicare payments for cataract surgery, has launched a hostile online counter-attack through the Labor Party.

Snowdon: Bunbury hosts national health debate

28 September 2009: The Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health, and Regional Services Delivery, Warren Snowdon, today visited the Bunbury Hospital South West Health Campus as part of a consultation with health professionals and stakeholders on recommendations of the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission report.

Good health, a responsibility not just a right

29 September 2009: The National Preventive Health Taskforce now advocates a comprehensive ''road map'' to make Australia the healthiest nation by 2020. Borrowing from the language of food advertising, the taskforce's prescription is ''chock full of goodness'', reflecting current preventive health wisdom, including assuming that poorer and implicitly ignorant people need protection from bad nutrition, smoking and drinking too much. It talks, for example, of higher taxes on cigarettes and alcohol to put these beyond reach of the less well-off for whom they count as affordable, if guilty, pleasures.

Looking into Indigenous eye health

28 September 2009: A national report into Indigenous eye health released today shows adult Indigenous Australians suffer higher rates of blindness and other eye related health problems than non-Indigenous Australians.

Caring for carers

28 September 2009: With an ageing society and health care systems under strain, we can expect to see more carers. With more people living into their 90s, we can expect an increase in Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, heart disease and injuries from falls and accidents. Someone will have to take care of people in those situations. The same applies to people with disabilities, mental illness, terminal illness, chronic conditions or who are just generally frail.

Labor cataract ad 'is offensive'

28 September 2009: Labor Party advertisement defending the federal government's plan to halve the rebate for cataract eye surgery is offensive and should be withdrawn, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) says. The ALP released a campaign video today accusing eye doctors of running a dishonest scare campaign.

Fatigue concern alarms

29 September 2009: Shadow health minister and Member for Caloundra Mark McArdle made an unexpected visit to Bundaberg Monday to share his concern about overworked doctors in Queensland, particularly at Bundaberg Hospital. The opposition member said doctors at Bundaberg Hospital were still doing 72-hour-straight shifts and has accused the government of putting patients at risk.

Kokoda trekkers need health checks: AMA

28 September 2009: Politicians and doctors have called for all would-be Kokoda trekkers to undergo compulsory health checks following the third Australian death on the gruelling track this year.

Veterans abandoned to private hells

28 September 2009: It hurts "Jim" that when he was medically discharged from the army with psychiatric problems in 2007, he was left for six weeks without any money. It pains him that he was asked to work 20-hour days in Iraq, facing constant mortar barrages without any protective armour. But what plays most on his mind is that since returning from Iraq in 2006, when he crashed into a depression that has seen him attempt suicide more than 10 times -- including by trying to hang himself in full uniform -- no one from the army has ever rung him.

NSW doctors worry about federal reforms

25 September 2009: Proposed federal government reforms to the health system will force the closure of existing local practices and see GPs starved of funding, concerned NSW doctors say.

Poor access leads to DIY dentistry: dental checks

26 September 2009: Poor Australians are resorting to do-it-yourself dentistry, including filing their own teeth and attempting their own extractions, because of lengthy queues for public dental services.

Cheaper drugs for dying patients as health costs rise

26 September 2009: Health Minister Nicola Roxon wants debate about the moral challenge as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee plans trials to determine when costly drugs become ineffective and should no longer be dispensed.

Swine flu vaccine: come and get it

24 September 2009: Health minister Nicola Roxon is urging all Australians to ring their GP next week to arrange to have the swine flu vaccine – and she wants GPs to bulk bill the consultations.

Swine flu vaccine: come and get it

25 September 2009: Readers' responses to swine flu vaccination.

Consent form adds to swine flu uncertainty

26 September 2009: Swine flu vaccinations start next week amid uncertainty among doctors over whether they pass on to patients a health department consent form asking whether patients have suffered a rare disabling disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Embrace the old school, region is told

25 September 2009: Alzheimer’s Australia NSW has predicted that the number of people suffering dementia in the Shoalhaven will quadruple over the next 40 years, a frightening statistic considering the South Coast is already in the top 10 electorates for dementia prevalence.

Cancer cost angst as dying patients may lose medicine

26 September 2009: Dying cancer patients could be weaned off taxpayer-funded drugs as the Federal Government is confronted with spiralling health costs.

Understanding suicide

25 September 2009: Recent news about the suicide rate in Australia has dismayed many. For years there has been a belief that the suicide rate nationally has been gradually declining.

Elliott: Minister announces $4 million dementia package

24 September 2009: Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot today announced a $4 million package for additional dementia research, information and support for people living with dementia and their carers.

Australia's experience with iodine nutrition: Lessons learned

24 September 2009: According to Australian researchers, iodine deficiency, which can result in thyroid conditions in adults and may cause mental handicap and contribute disproportionately to perinatal thyroid disease and death, is on the rise in Europe and Australia.

Roxon: New influenza testing equipment for all states and territories

24 September 2009: The Australian Government will provide $1.4 million in funding to the National Influenza Centres and other public health laboratories to purchase automated influenza testing equipment. Every State and Territory will receive funding as part of this initiative.

Northern GPs can give diagnosis on hospitals

25 September 2009: Northern doctors will get to have their say about the condition of the state's public hospitals when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Health Minister Nicola Roxon are in Launceston on October 12. The pair will be gathering information for the nation's hospital reform agenda.

SIDS safety blamed for babies' flat heads

25 September 2009: Placing babies on their backs to sleep has cut the incidence of SIDS but now has been linked to flat heads and ear abnormalities. New research suggests some babies experience severe flattening of the back of the head, caused by the pressure of sleeping in the same position all the time.

Spray for TGA over homeopaths

25 September 2009: Homeopaths who promote ''immunisations'' for life-threatening diseases, including meningococcal, malaria and swine flu, are putting lives at risk and should be stopped, a prominent public health expert has warned. Dr Ken Harvey, a physician with La Trobe University's school of public health, has complained to the Therapeutic Goods Administration's complaints panel about a group called Homeopathy Plus! for allegedly promoting immunisations for a range of diseases when there is no scientific evidence to back it up.

International news

US: Aussie death panels

26 September 2009: Nicola Roxon (above) is the health minister of Australia. She has come up with a new way to save money, by denying “expensive” medications to cancer patients.

US: ‘Bumpy’ start seen for swine flu vaccine plan

25 September 2009: The opening of the vaccination campaign for swine flu is “going to be a little bumpy,” the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted Friday as he gave new details about how the vaccine would be distributed.

WORLD: Calls for new global health framework

24 September 2009: Today at the UN headquarters the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made a down payment on reducing the number of deaths. He launched a program to bring free health care to at least 10 million people in six developing nations and said the world should be shamed into doing something about the nine million children under the age of five who die each year from treatable diseases.

US: Nurse practitioners vs physician assistants: how do they differ?

24 September 2009: In a recent episode of Crikey’s Diary of a Surgeon, Professor Guy Maddern wrote about the potential of physician assistants to help relieve pressures on our health care system. Physician assistants have been an integral part of the US health system for many decades.

US: It's a boy! Laboring mom, newborn simulators give nursing students life-like practice

24 September 2009: She cries out with each contraction. Her chest rises and falls while a screen displays her blood pressure and heart rate. Then her baby enters the world with his first cry. "Birthing Noelle," the new high-tech mannequin at the University of Central Florida's College of Nursing, is giving birth to "Baby Hal," a smaller computerized mannequin resembling a newborn.